perf(linter/plugins): cache token objects by overlookmotel · Pull Request #19978 · oxc-project/oxc

overlookmotel · 2026-03-03T21:02:26Z

Add a cache for token objects. Once warmed up over the first few files, no further token objects are created - the same objects are reused over and over across all files.

Running a JS plugin which just accesses context.sourceCode.ast.tokens (so triggering deserialization of tokens) and does nothing else, on NodeJS repo, this nets a 40% speed-up.

overlookmotel · 2026-03-03T21:02:39Z

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Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR introduces token object pooling for the JS plugin runtime to reduce per-file allocations and GC pressure, aiming to speed up cases where plugins trigger token deserialization (e.g., context.sourceCode.ast.tokens).

Changes:

Add a cachedTokens pool and deserialize tokens by mutating existing objects instead of allocating new ones each file.
Track and reset per-token cached fields (loc, regex) when finishing a file so pooled tokens can be safely reused.
Make loc properties configurable so they can be deleted during reset to restore prototype getters.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
apps/oxlint/src-js/plugins/tokens.ts	Introduces token pooling + regex descriptor reuse, and adds reset logic for cached `loc`/`regex`.
apps/oxlint/src-js/plugins/location.ts	Makes `loc` configurable so pooled tokens can delete cached `loc` between files.

apps/oxlint/src-js/plugins/tokens.ts

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

apps/oxlint/src-js/plugins/tokens.ts

graphite-app · 2026-03-03T23:23:30Z

Merge activity

Mar 3, 11:23 PM UTC: overlookmotel added this pull request to the Graphite merge queue.
Mar 3, 11:31 PM UTC: Merged by the Graphite merge queue.

Add a cache for token objects. Once warmed up over the first few files, no further token objects are created - the same objects are reused over and over across all files. Running a JS plugin which just accesses `context.sourceCode.ast.tokens` (so triggering deserialization of tokens) and does nothing else, on NodeJS repo, this nets a 40% speed-up.

Further optimization after #19978. Reduce memory copies when slicing the tokens array. We can't avoid memory copies entirely, but we can reuse the previous tokens array and avoid them in ~50% of files. See comment in the code for more details.

#19978 introduced caching of tokens, and got a large speed-up. However, it had one major flaw. Token objects (like AST nodes) are plain objects with a getter on the prototype for `loc` property. When `loc` getter is triggered, it adds a property to the token object itself, so that accessing `loc` again evaluates to the same `Location` object, rather than recalculating the location and creating a new object. Now that we cache tokens objects, any tokens which had `loc` property added need to have that property deleted again when tokens are reset, ready for reuse. Deleting the `loc` property has an unfortunate side effect. V8 transitions the object into "dictionary mode", which makes all property accesses much slower on that object for the rest of its lifecycle. Worse, it means that token objects don't have a consistent object "shape", which inhibits inline caches and transitions `deserializeTokenInto` from monomorphic to polymorphic, which makes V8 deoptimize it. This is one of the hottest JS functions in Oxlint, so has a heavy perf impact. Solve this problem by making tokens instances of a `Token` class. `Token` stores `loc` in a private `#loc` property, and the `loc` getter can fetch it if `loc` for that token was already accessed. All `Token` objects now have a consistent object shape throughout, regardless of whether `loc` is accessed on them or not. This does make the `loc` getter a little more expensive, but that cost is heavily outweighed by the improved performance yielded by consistent object shapes.

# Oxlint ### 🚀 Features - e6b604f oxlint: Auto-enable gitlab formatter on GitLab (#20076) (camc314) - 2488a68 linter: Add .oxlintrc.jsonc config file support (#19870) (Scott S.) - 61bf388 linter: Add `options.reportUnusedDisableDirectives` to config file (#19799) (Peter Wagenet) - c92422b oxlint: Auto-enable github formatter on GitHub Actions (#19944) (Boshen) - 0337c6d linter: Implement typescript/no-unecessary-type-conversion (#19955) (camc314) - 2919313 linter: Introduce denyWarnings config options (#19926) (camc314) - a607119 linter: Introduce maxWarnings config option (#19777) (camc314) ### 🐛 Bug Fixes - 0861d9a linter/plugins: Remove getters from `Context` (#20115) (overlookmotel) - 92cfb14 linter/plugins: Fix types for `walkProgram` and `walkProgramWithCfg` (#20081) (overlookmotel) - 10e211f oxlint/lsp: Send other code actions besides `source.fixAll` if requested (#20042) (Sysix) - 602daaa linter/plugins: Fix type definition for `VisitorObject` (#20065) (overlookmotel) - ee0491e apps,napi: Explicitly specify libs in tsconfigs (#20071) (camc314) - b6e9499 linter: Fix the logic for `unicorn/prefer-dom-node-remove` to handle literal callees as well as arguments. (#20059) (connorshea) - 3874ae1 linter: Update `unicorn/prefer-query-selector` to also catch `getElementsByName()`. (#20060) (connorshea) - 77c93fb linter: Handle array-type shorthand inside union members (#20034) (camc314) - 50eb160 linter/no-unused-vars: Allow unused type params in ambient module blocks (#19615) (Don Isaac) - 1dd0d21 linter/no-restricted-imports: Apply regex pattern checks to side-effect imports (#20028) (camc314) - 7f3d735 linter: Error when --type-check is used without --type-aware (#20025) (camc314) - eea201c unicorn/prefer-string-slice: Avoid unsafe autofix for substr-to-slice (#20010) (camc314) - 50359dc oxlint/lsp: Detect `reportUnusedDisableDirectives` from oxlint config, change lsp `unusedDisableDirectives` default value to `None` (#20011) (Sysix) - 4bc84b1 linter/plugins: Allow `null` and `undefined` for `rule.meta.fixable` (#20008) (overlookmotel) - 753e27e linter/role-supports-aria-props: Add `aria-posinset` to supported `option` ARIA properties (#20003) (JongKyung Lee) - f57b2c9 linter/plugins: Fix return types of tokens methods (#19985) (overlookmotel) - 27ee4fc linter/no-loss-of-precision: Avoid double rounding for negative exponents (#19999) (camc314) - 77a94bb linter: Avoid no-loss-of-precision false positive for 3e-308 (#19992) (camc314) - 6245c56 linter/no-unused-private-class-members: Treat logical lhs access as usage (#19991) (camc314) - 65891e3 linter: Avoid prefer-const false positive for mixed-scope destructuring (#19982) (camc314) - 89991fe linter: Avoid prefer-const false positive for operator reassignments (#19975) (camc314) - 87318e7 oxlint/lsp: Load js config with reforcing fs read (#19551) (Sysix) - d40a942 linter/no-useless-constructor: Mark fixer as suggestion (#19961) (camc314) - ccbd959 linter/prefer-code-point: Report String.fromCharCode member references (#19931) (camc314) - 14fbbfc linter: Add help text to oxc/no-rest-spread-properties rule (#19900) (Subin Kim) ### ⚡ Performance - 2baa5fb napi: Unify build-test profile to coverage for cache sharing (#20090) (Boshen) - 77f1c71 linter/plugins: Make tokens class instances (#19980) (overlookmotel) - 758b424 linter/plugins: Reduce memory copies for tokens (#19979) (overlookmotel) - 236847f linter/plugins: Cache token objects (#19978) (overlookmotel) - 94b597a linter/plugins: Store tokens as a `Box<[Token]>` (#19969) (overlookmotel) ### 📚 Documentation - 2c0010a linter/plugins: Move comment about "bivariance hack" into generated code (#20082) (overlookmotel) - 7538f09 linter: Improve `import/extensions` and `import/no-named-as-default` rule docs. (#20053) (connorshea) - 1f909cf linter: Improve docs for `unicorn/require-post-message-target-origin` rule. (#20061) (connorshea) - 12ae35c oxlint/lsp: Remove outdated ToDo for `LintOptions.run` (#20012) (Sysix) - 3be73e6 linter/plugins: Fix JSDoc comments for tokens methods (#20004) (overlookmotel) - 48ef285 linter: Update `--config` docs (#19965) (camc314) - 6ea49a0 linter: Fix some identation issues for the generated types used in `oxlint.config.ts`. (#19942) (connorshea) - 6c0e0b5 linter: Add oxlint.config.ts to the config docs. (#19941) (connorshea) - 160e423 linter: Add a note that the typeAware and typeCheck options require oxlint-tsgolint (#19940) (connorshea) - d54c275 linter: Improve rule docs for 27 unicorn rules (#19903) (connorshea) # Oxfmt ### 🚀 Features - ee26215 oxfmt: Support css-in-js substitution (#20019) (leaysgur) - 0f0ff51 oxfmt: Display default settings was used message in cli stats (#19939) (leaysgur) - 88815b8 oxfmt: Reintroduce stats line for write mode (#19938) (leaysgur) ### 🐛 Bug Fixes - ee0491e apps,napi: Explicitly specify libs in tsconfigs (#20071) (camc314) - 92f4490 oxfmt: Apply `is_ignored_dir` for glob paths too (#20056) (leaysgur) - 114f974 oxfmt/lsp: Prefer language_id over file extension when formatting (#19977) (copilot-swe-agent) ### ⚡ Performance - 2baa5fb napi: Unify build-test profile to coverage for cache sharing (#20090) (Boshen) Co-authored-by: Boshen <1430279+Boshen@users.noreply.github.com>

Apply the same optimization as #19978 to comments - hold a pool of `Comment` objects, and re-use those objects rather than creating new objects each time. Same as with `Token`s, `loc` property is a getter which calculates `loc` lazily, and caches it in a private property.

github-actions bot added A-linter Area - Linter A-cli Area - CLI A-linter-plugins Area - Linter JS plugins labels Mar 3, 2026

overlookmotel mentioned this pull request Mar 3, 2026

perf(linter/plugins): reduce memory copies for tokens #19979

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github-actions bot added the C-performance Category - Solution not expected to change functional behavior, only performance label Mar 3, 2026

This was referenced Mar 3, 2026

perf(linter/plugins): make tokens class instances #19980

Merged

refactor(linter/plugins): split tokens initialization from tokens methods #19981

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overlookmotel marked this pull request as ready for review March 3, 2026 21:07

overlookmotel requested a review from camc314 as a code owner March 3, 2026 21:07

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings March 3, 2026 21:07

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camc314 assigned overlookmotel Mar 3, 2026

overlookmotel force-pushed the om/03-02-perf_linter_plugins_cache_token_objects branch from dbf5724 to 0aa0c02 Compare March 3, 2026 22:42

overlookmotel requested a review from Copilot March 3, 2026 22:42

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graphite-app bot added the 0-merge Merge with Graphite Merge Queue label Mar 3, 2026

graphite-app bot force-pushed the om/03-02-perf_linter_plugins_cache_token_objects branch from 0aa0c02 to 236847f Compare March 3, 2026 23:23

graphite-app bot merged commit 236847f into main Mar 3, 2026
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graphite-app bot deleted the om/03-02-perf_linter_plugins_cache_token_objects branch March 3, 2026 23:31

graphite-app bot removed the 0-merge Merge with Graphite Merge Queue label Mar 3, 2026

Boshen mentioned this pull request Mar 9, 2026

release(apps): oxlint v1.52.0 && oxfmt v0.37.0 #20143

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overlookmotel mentioned this pull request Mar 14, 2026

perf(linter/plugins): recycle comment objects #20362

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